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News — KINGSTON, R.I. – Sitting on Narragansett Bay in northeastern Rhode Island, the town of Warren is highly vulnerable to the effects of sea-level rise and flooding due to its low elevation. According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration projections, the sea level is projected to rise 1.6 feet by 2050 – 2.29 feet by 2060 – worsening the conditions that Warren faces under normal tide ranges, not to mention flooding.

Starting this fall, a multidisciplinary team of scientists from the University of Rhode Island will begin working with stakeholders in Warren to address worsening climate hazards that are affecting coastal communities, including flooding and salinization, as part of a three-state collaboration backed by the National Science Foundation.

“Finding solutions to this very complex problem requires experts with a range of expertise to provide the support and information necessary to enable community members to make important decisions,” said Emi Uchida, principal investigator of URI’s $1.5 million grant, and professor and chair of the Department of Environmental Natural Resource Economics. “So, we’re bringing together experts in behavioral economics, natural sciences, engineering, public policy, and stakeholder engagement to provide the information communities need to empower them to make adaptation decisions that ensure climate resilience to flooding and salinization.”

The project – “Risks, Impacts, and Strategies for Coastal Communities: Advancing Convergent Science to Support Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience” – is a collaboration of three states – Rhode Island, Delaware, and South Carolina. The $6 million, four-year initiative is led by the University of Delaware, and benefits from wide partnerships of researchers and stakeholders in each state. 

“These three states are among the top 10 low-lying states in the U.S.,” said Uchida. “The coastal communities in these states are going to experience more flooding and that comes with surface and groundwater flooding, as well as increasing salinity levels in waters and soil. This is really where the impact is going to be felt. So, this type of research is really needed.”

The initiative is part of the NSF’s $77.8 million program to increase climate resilience by supporting 14 projects – overseen by 50 institutions in 21 jurisdictions – through the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research. EPSCoR’s Research Infrastructure Improvement-Focused EPSCoR Collaborations program (RII-FEC) supports interdisciplinary research teams working across jurisdictions to advance climate change research and build resilience in disproportionately affected communities nationwide.

Uchida heads a multidisciplinary team that includes URI co-principal investigators Christopher Russoniello, assistant professor of geosciences; Pengfei Liu, associate professor of environmental and natural resource economics; and Mehrshad Amini, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and ocean engineering; along with Eliza Berry, a climate resilience specialist with the Coastal Resources Center and Rhode Island Sea Grant; and Nathan Vinhateiro, science director of the Coastal Institute.

“None of us operate in a vacuum,” said Russoniello. “All of us work together to achieve a goal, which is providing the best information to these communities. And any one of us alone can’t factor in all the different pieces that need to be considered. That’s why we really want to lean on the social scientists who can tell us what is most valuable for the community.”

Warren was chosen – along with Little Creek and Delaware Bay beaches, and Edisto Island in South Carolina – because it is disproportionately affected by climate change and sea-level rise on the Atlantic coast, which faces nearly twice the global rate of sea-level rise. Among the factors considered were Warren’s flood and salinization risks, and potential for high flood damage to infrastructure, Amini said.

URI researchers will evaluate these areas and more, helping Warren community members devise climate adaptation and mitigation strategies. The project will also advance scientific knowledge on how disproportionately affected coastal communities deal with and adapt to flooding and salinization.

The project builds on existing relationships with stakeholders in Warren who will help organize community meetings, workshops and surveys, said Berry, who will oversee community engagement and ensure the research meets the stakeholders’ needs.

“At certain points during the project, we’ll be surveying stakeholders to understand what their priorities are for climate adaptation,” Berry said. “I want to emphasize that this project is addressing a need articulated by the community. Warren and its residents have been on the forefront of thinking really early and long-term about the potential to retreat from the shoreline. They’re ahead of the curve for coastal communities, and they need help from this kind of applied science.”

Strategies to adapt to coastal vulnerability and solutions come at a trade-off, said Uchida. Warren is exploring “managed retreat” from the most impacted areas, purposely moving infrastructure or homes to inland areas less at risk. Current discussions include home buyouts of existing buildings – which could be controversial, Uchida explained – and redevelopment of a key corridor where current residents can settle. 

“We’d like to bring in the science to think about what each of these options mean in terms of reducing that risk of flooding,” said Uchida, “and what it means in terms of people’s well-being so the community can use that information to consider those trade-offs and make science-driven decisions themselves.”

The four-year initiative started with URI researchers and Warren residents developing the project, along with ensuring the grant proposal addressed their needs to make informed decisions, Uchida said. “At the end, we’ll develop a decision-support system that brings each piece of information together, providing decision makers an integrated, helpful platform to consider different alternatives and understand what each means for their communities,” she said.

In the third year, members of community advisory boards in Delaware and South Carolina will visit Rhode Island to learn from Warren, including its plan for “managed retreat.” Some of the principal investigators in both states will also be on hand.

“These modelings will be done with similar approaches, covering three states for comparison,” Uchida said. “What we can learn from each state is really what’s going to make this three-state collaboration meaningful.”

Berry said the modeling methods, decision support tools, and approaches to engaging communities in this complex problem could be applicable to other low-lying communities that are navigating hard decisions on managing increasing flood risk. 

“The project is helping communities to determine what is a decision-making process that we can employ that takes into account our needs and this whole range of sciences,” she said. “That’s a difficult thing that I think all coastal communities could benefit from learning.”